On August 3rd, we woke to see the Daisy May Campground in daylight. It was a dense collection of RVs and an attenuated collection of services. Worse, all the services were clustered around the house of the live-in proprietors.

It is easiest to describe what the clientele of Daisy May are not: thin, young, vegetarian, or brown. Even the children were chubby old white people in kid suits. The washrooms were shrines to their self-destructive dietary habits. Seriously, they could have used a fan up in that joint.

On the plus side, they only charged us $25 for the night, because we didn’t get to use the pool.

Despite the shocking rankness of the washrooms, the opportunity for a shower was too good to ignore. We cleaned ourselves up, trying not to get any, you know, air on ourselves.

Our first stop of the day was the World Heritage Site Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. This was a place where, for thousands of years, the Plains people had hunted bison by stampeding them over a low cliff. They left behind an archaeological treasure trove, revealing the lifestyle and culture of First Nations people pre-contact. Until a few hundred years ago, they didn’t even have horses, so the hunt was conducted entirely on foot. You have to witness the vastness of the prairie to appreciate how incredible that was.

The site has an excellent museum now, explaining what the People believed, how they lived, and the significance of the bison to their existence. The bison was their primary source of food, tools, clothing, fuel, and shelter. It’s difficult for us, with the stunning heterogeneity of our economic system, to comprehend how utterly they depended on this one animal. And how utterly bereft they must have been when bison were eradicated in Canada by the obscene slaughter visited upon them by colonials.

I think Those Johnston Kids found it interesting, but it’s hard to tell. If an attraction isn’t immediately tactile or active, they’re not that effusive about it. But a month later they’ll throw out some odd bit of information about the place that was significant to them. The one thing I am certain captured their interest this time were the bison options in the cafe. We are vegetarians but they wanted to try bison. I would not for a moment allow a fast-food burger or other pedestrian meat, but this was okay with me because it had an important cultural connection.

I was hoping for bison ribs or steak, or even jerky. Unfortunately, the cafe only offered ground up bison in the form of burgers, stew, or chili. We shared a bowl of the chili. Not exactly the profound cultural experience I was hoping for, but they liked it. Baby Girl said that she could live on bison all the time.

I wanted to bring the kids to Head-Smashed-In because it’s a special place. One important thing about is that it’s an Indigenous place being run by Indigenous people. We need more of those in Canada.

It was a hot day, pushing about 32 degrees. I’ve heard Toronto has been seeing higher temperatures, but people in Toronto probably aren’t spending the afternoon in a dark car with no air conditioning. We drove across the dry southern Alberta terrain to Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park, with our tongues hanging out the whole way. We were all wet with sweat when we finally pulled into the campground.

The campground there is a mix of gravel and sand, slightly softened by some thirsty looking cottonwood trees. It’s actually quite nice in an austere sort of way and is situated in the valley of the Milk River, a shallow sandy waterway with a surprisingly strong current. The Milk River is unique in Alberta as being the only river that drains to the south, to the Missouri/Mississippi basin. At the time we cared not a whit for the hydrography of the thing, we just wanted to immerse ourselves in it. Our fervour was dampened by the warning we received at check-in that the water in the river was under an advisory and swimming was at our own risk. We took our risk for a swim. I considered it a teachable moment anyway. How many of you have had to explain faecal coliform bacteria to your kids? We kept our heads and faces out of the water and seem to have survived. Our swim was followed by a good rinse though.

Our relief was temporary as the heat continued through dinner and topless game of SkipBo. Baby Girl won again. She’s turning into a real shark.

We slept on top of our sleeping bags for the first time. Oh, how I longed for the cool nights in the mountains.